maddie the bully

so madelyn is a bully. here are a few videos of her stealing her cousin's pacifier. it doesn't matter that she hasn't touched her own since she was around 2 months - she wants annabell's. you can see in the second video that she doesn't really mean any harm she just wants to share in the experience. right?





okay. she isn't really a bully. she just doesn't know her own strength or that she is bigger than other kids her age (for that matter, kids older than her). we are going to have to work on being "gentle" and "nice". we are having playgroup at our house on thursday so we will have to see how she does. love.

bye-bye morning nap

for the past three days madelyn has not taken a morning nap. i am mourning its loss and there will definitely be a whole new dynamic to my work day. she shows no signs of even needing one. i have read her books and put her down just like normal but she just lays there and talks to herself, her toys, anything. at least she doesn't cry. but there is definitely no sleeping going on.

yesterday uncle brad, aunt abby, and cousin annabell arrived just in time for dinner. we are enjoying their visit and the girls are enjoying kicking, crying, and laughing together. madelyn has a more physical approach to expressing her love than annabell and i think maddie is a little overwhelming... here is a picture of her saying 'welcome' to annabell after she woke up from her nap. basically they were sitting and looking at each other when maddie decided that she needed to get up close and personal to really say 'hello'. so she climbed up annabell - knocking her over - and grabbed her face while laying on top of her.

then the two girls took a bath together, but maddie kept trying to climb out of the tub. just the latest in her "up-and-over" adventures. she has also learned that she can reach the water in the toilet.

madelyn has realized that she is tall. she now reaches the top of the kitchen table, the top of the bar stools, the top of the buffet under the t.v., pretty much the top of everything. she is always looking for what she can reach that is even higher. to the point where she will stand on her tippy-toes to reach just a little more.

i just love how curious and adventuresome she is! although it does make a lot more work for me and matt.

here is a picture of annabell playing while maddie took her afternoon nap (those have gotten to be almost three hours now that she isn't taking a morning nap). annabell is exactly one week younger than madelyn. and they are going to have another cousin that will be almost exactly one year younger than they are (she is due on annabell's birthday). isn't she cute?


more to come later! love.

mommy's home

sorry to have not posted sooner (especially since matt didn't post while i was gone) but i had a lot to take care of when i got home and maddie had some cold (or teething) symptoms. she threw-up for the first time on wednesday and had a slight fever on thrusday. not to mention that her cough has gotten 'juicier'. i think that all of this is from her molars coming in and not from a bug.

as with every trip i take, she changed so much while i was gone! she waves 'hi' and brings her hands together when someone claps. she has also figured out the "daddy" sign. i am not sure that she knows what it means, but she will do it when we do it so that's something. right? she has become a regular chatter-box! she babbles pretty much all day from the moment she wakes up to the moment she goes to sleep. at least while we are at home. when we ran errands today she didn't say very much. i think that there is just so much to take in that she forgets everything else.

here is a video of us playing peek-a-boo around her cup after lunch yesterday. she is just so giggly. she is also starting to laugh when tickled. her neck, right armpit, and feet are her ticklish spots.



the picture at the top is one matt took of her climbing under the coffee table when i was gone. and this picture is one he caught of her 'carrying' her toys while she is crawling.

tomorrow her uncle brad, aunt abby, and cousin annabell are coming to visit for the week. we are really excited to see them! i will do my best to keep you up on all the action! love.

on the road again

so much is going on right now! matt wants to stress that she is not "walking", but madelyn took two steps yesterday going from me to matt! its pretty exciting! i held her up for a step or two to get her going and then let go and she took two more to get to matt's hands. her balance gets a little better everyday. the sensation of walking both excites and scares her - you can just see it in her face.

since her mobility is just exploding right now i have started to give her free run of the house. i stay with her and follow her around, but i don't try to keep her confined to any one room. she is now free to explore her home. two of her favorite things are the stools at the kitchen counter. she has just figured out that she can climb up one and move herself to the other. they are a little wobbly with her pulling on them, but so far there have been no major catastrophes.

i am pretty sure that she is starting to cut her molars. (i think that i am starting to be able to feel them on the upper right.) she has never drooled so much! she has also shown real interest in her teething rings and anything long enough to reach the back of her mouth for chewing. her favorite is the rubber handle of her hair brush. the cutest part about the drooling is that she tries to suck it all back in. you can hear it in this video where she is sucking on her tongue and lips trying to contain the drool. all the drooling has also given her a little cough.

we are also experimenting with a later bedtime of 8:00pm. the thought here is that matt will have a better chance of getting home before she goes to bed for the night and that i will have a better chance of getting some work time in before she wakes up in the morning. we are going to try it for a month and if she still isn't sleeping later then we will go back to the earlier bedtime.

i am heading off to kansas for work tonight so matt and maddie will be on their own until wednesday. matt says that he might try to blog while i am gone, but we'll see - he is really into his tiger woods golf on the wii...

last night we went to a post-holiday party with matt's work peers. we took a picture of the kids together (at least the ones that were there) because there was a baby born to someone in their group every month last year. we lined them up by age and maddie is the youngest on the right (the oldest is 13 months).

be watching for matt's updates and if he doesn't i will be back to posting on thursday. love.

tofu is torrific!

the tofu was a huge hit today! for any of you using finger foods i highly recommend firm tofu. maddie gobbled it up and it was a lot easier to pick-up than the fruit pieces. plus, it can be mixed in with other foods for some extra protein pre-meats.

i forgot to mention yesterday that madelyn has another new desire - to crawl up and over anything in her way. besides just reaching up as high as she can to grab things she is starting to put her feet into the act too. she has been trying to climb up and over one of her toys by stepping up with one of her feet.

today she has started standing all by herself for 1 - 2 seconds and she can take one or two steps while holding on to my finger with one hand for balance. she still has a long way to go for actual walking but we are starting to see signs of it.

today at playgroup she enjoyed chasing around one of their little dogs. she just kept laughing at it and crawling after it. at least that was what she was doing when she wasn't trying to climb over the other babies! she is getting so fast that i can't really carry on a conversation because i have to stay on top of her the whole time. fun, fun, fun!

love.

new games

madelyn and i had some fun today playing a new game. i crawl around the house and she follows me. i would crawl around the couch and down the hall to her room, etc. and she would crawl after me laughing. sometimes she would sit up to see where i was and then would start laughing when she saw me and take off again. i can't wait for her to play this new game with her daddy!

here is a video of our second new game of the day - dropping a beach ball on her belly. for some reason this was hysterical to her and i filmed it because she was snorting when she laughed.



her new trick of the day is that she can get herself back down after she pulls up on something. it takes her a few tries, but she doesn't need me to help her down any more and she doesn't fall to hit her face. i am so proud of her for being such a 'big girl'!



she also started making repetitive "b" sounds last night. i wonder what word she will say next...

just to give you an idea for what a wiggle worm she is, today she sat down from standing and when she came right back up she had somehow gotten her arm out of her sleeve in less than two seconds! and then she sat back down to play again.

on the foods front tomorrow we start tofu as a finger food. the egg yolks have gone over great - she gobbled up her oatmeal/millet porridge this morning when i mixed in the hard boiled yolk and avocado (sounds disgusting, right?). it was almost a full cup worth of food!

i can't wait to see what new things she will have for me tomorrow! love.

improvised movements

madelyn wants to walk so bad. she has now started to crawl with her back legs straight like she is walking on all fours. she starts by standing with the help of whatever she can get her hands on and then can't figure out how to move around once she goes as far as the coffee table/couch/wall/toy can get her. then she works her way down to sitting and tries to crawl/walk to where she is going.

she has also developed a means for taking her toys with her when she gets on the move - she puts them in her mouth! its really funny when she does it with a stuffed animal. she looks like a mother animal carrying her young. she also did it with the balloon ribbon at the birthday party over the weekend so that she could take the balloon with her.

today we tried hard boiled egg yolks. i didn't have them ready in time for mixing in with her porridge (because of her nurse appointment this morning for the other half of her flu shot), so she had it for a mid-morning snack crumbled up for finger food. she actually did a lot better than i thought she would. i would guess that she ate at least half of it and the rest got smashed up or dropped on the floor in the process.

love.